Every day, we hear another story about a company whose sensitive data has been breached. Press releases, tweets, customer support email, and followup articles all provide insight into the kind of information thatâs been compromised, the companyâs plans to investigate, and how affected parties can protect themselves.
But whatâs almost never sharedâunless the attacker spreads the wordâis how and why the target was chosen and which methods and tools were used.

To effectively fend off attacks and protect our data systems, we must determine how hackers identify their targets and exploit weaknesses to extract data. We must also understand what motivates hackers.